I painted "Branches and Vines" for my Honors Art 1V class. It is 16"x20". The unit was on Surrealism. The requirement was that you had to use wet media and you had to use your body but you could not use your head. Something had to replace your head. This was one of our first projects for the year, I wanted to start strong so I thought no better way than to do something that I'm very passionate about. "Branches and Vines" showcases my passion for spreading God's word even without words. 

"Branches and Vines" is based on the scripture John 15:5, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing". I decided to put the tree in the background to represent God and the vines growing off of it reaching for me and wrapping around me fully to represent that God reaches out for me and in return, I give myself to him fully in every aspect of my life. I used the position of my body and the berry as my head to point to the tree as an everlasting cycle of love and trust. Through Him, I bear fruit and that is how I got the idea of painting the berry as the fruit of God. You can see berries throughout all areas of the painting because even in the back, they are still there. Often, people forget to look at the world with faithful eyes, and when you do you won't only see God's fruit growing, you also grow as the fruit of God. 

Throughout this assignment, I've learned what surrealsim is. I took a huge risk by painting so significant value changes to achieve the amount of form, value, texture, and emphasis. I have not ever used colors as vibrant as this before, and I noticed that it helps draw your eye to it for a long period of time.  "Branches and Vines" is made from acrylic paint. To help create some more depth, I used molding paste. I used it to elevate parts of the tree, branches, vines, berries, and leaves. Even though it is surrealist, this assignment largely taught me new skills with acrylic paint, and how to get a concept across even it is not in done in realism.